


Shake This World Off My Shoulders

by iamtheenemy (Steph)



Category: Pod Save America (RPF)
Genre: First Time, Insomnia, Lovett Is Not Jeff Sessions, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Pining, Shared hotel room, Therapy, Tommy Has Mentionitis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 00:56:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13043166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steph/pseuds/iamtheenemy
Summary: Tommy couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t a new problem for him. Years spent in the White House, inside the Situation Room, had left him anxious and jittery and unable to close his eyes without any of a hundred worst case scenarios running through his mind.





	Shake This World Off My Shoulders

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nighimpossible](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nighimpossible/gifts).



> I left the timeline here purposely fuzzy and I got jossed by Lucca, so she's not in this either. I know nothing about being a therapist or having insomnia, but I tried to roll with it.
> 
> Nighimpossible, I hope this story is what you wanted! I was so excited to read your prompts, I hope that I did this one justice. Have a fantastic holiday and a wonderful new year!
> 
> Title comes from Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark"
> 
> Be cool, guys. Let’s keep the fourth wall in tact here.

Tommy couldn’t sleep. This wasn’t a new problem for him. Years spent in the White House, inside the Situation Room, had left him anxious and jittery and unable to close his eyes without any of a hundred worst case scenarios running through his mind.

Leaving the White House helped, and then moving out to California helped even more. Good climate, friendly people, and the fate of the free world being almost entirely out his hands had a rejuvenating effect on his mental health. Joining _Keepin’ It 1600_ with Favs and Lovett was fun and an entertaining way to channel all of his energy during the election.

And then Donald Trump won.

Even then, it wasn’t like some switch flipped in his brain, and suddenly he couldn’t sleep again. It happened slowly, as news kept breaking about the decisions Trump was making. It was all of the stress of his old job, with none of the ability to help in any real, substantive way, plus the nagging anxiety about what nightmare situations are happening that the world doesn’t know about.

So it’d been months now. He only got more than three restless hours of sleep maybe one night out of every five. He _could not_ sleep and nothing seemed to fucking help.

***

“Come on in.”

Dr. Bacall was a middle aged woman with shoulder-length black hair and a brisk, professional way of speaking that Tommy immediately liked when he spoke to her on the phone. She wore a black pant suit. A pair of slim, wire-rimmed glasses dangled from a metal chain around her neck.

She stuck out her hand and Tommy shook it and he stepped into her office. It seemed comfortable and unthreatening. All the furniture and decorations were in muted colors. Her certifications were framed on one wall and a sturdy wooden bookcase took up most of the room on another wall. There were three comfortable chairs and a small end table in the middle of the room.

The doctor gestured to one and he took a seat.

“Bottle of water?” she asked, offering him one.

“Thanks,” he said.

“I hope you don’t mind if I take notes,” she began, sliding her glasses on. She had a file in her hand, as well as a small notebook.

Tommy shook his head. “Of course not.”

“Great.” She gave him a friendly smile. “Should I call you Thomas? Tom?”

“Tommy,” he answered.

“Tommy,” she agreed. “When we spoke on the phone last week, Tommy, you mentioned that you’ve been having some trouble sleeping? Is this a recent problem?”

He scoffed. “Unfortunately, no. The anxiety has always been a problem, ever since I was a kid. But my troubles sleeping really started because of my job.”

“Ah.” She opened the folder in front of her and skimmed over the top sheet of paper, probably a print out of the survey her assistant had emailed him after he set up the appointment. “It says here that you’re in entertainment. Actor?”

“No, I co-own a media company that produces podcasts. But actually I was talking about the job I had before. I worked in politics. That’s what my friends and I podcast about now.”

“Oh, interesting. Did you work with anyone I’d know?” she asked.

“President Obama,” he answered and watched her eyebrows climb into her hairline.

“You worked in the White House?”

“I was a spokesperson for the NSC.”

“Well.” She paused to collect her thoughts. “That certainly sounds like it would be stressful.”

“The anxiety was off and on,” Tommy admitted. “There was a while there, when I was getting the hang of working in the White House, that I thought I had it under control. Then it all came back during Obama's re-election campaign. Moving out west helped. I was doing okay, mostly. And then this past election happened.”

She nodded. “You’re not the only person I talked to who’s felt that way about the election. This is a very tumultuous time for everyone. Even more so for someone like you, who knows what it’s like to be involved in the government.”

“Problems would come up all the time, obviously,” Tommy replied. “But when they did, the President would gather a team of the most knowledgeable people on the planet to help him work through it. I think of the yahoos in the Situation Room now, and…” He ran his fingers through his hair in agitation.

“It gives me nightmares. Waking nightmares.”

***

Tommy stared at an empty Word document where he was supposed to be coming up with interview questions for the next _Pod Save The World_. Jason Isbell was playing softly through his earbuds, and he was forcing himself not to check Twitter until he actually got something done.

The four huge cups of coffee he’d had since returning from his early morning run had him feeling jittery and over-caffeinated. Lately, “early morning” had shifted from five-thirty to just after four am when he usually admitted defeat and got up for the day.

A hand covering his own jolted him out of his stupor and looked up to see Lovett glaring down at him. Tommy yanked the earbuds out of his ears with his free hand.

“What…?”

“I said,” Jon replied in a clipped tone, “if you don’t stop tapping this pen, I will shove it down your throat.”

Tommy’s fingers released the pen he hadn’t even realized he was holding and Jon let go of his hand.

“Thank you,” Jon said and returned to his seat behind his desk.

“Sorry,” Tommy said. “Sorry, I zoned out. I haven’t been getting much sleep lately.”

Favs looked up from on the ground where he was playing with Leo. “That’s happening again? Like before?” he asked, sounding concerned.

Tommy inclined his head in acknowledgment.

“What’s happening like before?” Lovett asked, glancing between them.

“Tommy not being able to sleep. You don’t remember that from when you guys lived together?”

“He never mentioned it,” Lovett answered.

Tommy laid his head on his arms, already checking out of the conversation. “It comes and goes,” he replied.

Emily, who had been playing on her phone, spoke up. “Have you tried yoga?”

“Yoga?” he asked as Lovett and Favs both groaned.

“That’s Em’s new answer to every problem,” Favs said.

“Goes to a couple classes, thinks she’s a yogi,” Lovett said with a roll of his eyes.

“Don’t listen to these assholes,” Emily said, waving her hand as if to swat away their words. “Yoga is a great way to reduce stress and encourage a healthy sleep cycle. I go to classes on Mondays and Wednesdays. They’re co-ed with a bunch of beginners. You could come with me tomorrow night, if you wanted.”

Tommy shrugged and thought _why the hell not_? It couldn’t hurt to try, and he was getting desperate.

***

“You’re disgusting,” Lovett said from where he was sitting next to Favs on the couch watching TV when Tommy walked into the Favreaus’ house the next night.

Tommy blinked and looked down at his t-shirt and newly-purchased black yoga pants.

“Umm…”

“I hate you,” Lovett added.

“What did I do?” Tommy asked.

“I think Lovett is showing appreciation for those yoga pants - in his own maladjusted way,” Emily explained. “He’s got a point. Looking good, Vietor.”

Tommy felt himself start to go hot, even as he glanced at Lovett for confirmation.

“Your face makes me sick,” Lovett responded. “Ugh, I need to get to the gym more.” He tugged at the bottom of his blue shirt, pulling it down from where it had ridden up to expose a thin strip of a soft-looking belly. Tommy averted his eyes.

“You could come with us,” Emily offered with the offhanded air of someone who already knew what the answer would be.

“I won’t let you indoctrinate me into your cult, yoga Jim Jones,” Lovett answered.

“Also we’re thirty minutes into _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ ,” Favs added, gesturing at the television.

“You’re not as good-looking as young Harrison Ford,” Lovett told Tommy.

“I...never said I was?” Tommy replied.

“Ok, we’re gonna be late,” Emily interrupted. She handed Tommy the rolled up spare yoga mat she had promised him and picked up her keys from the bowl by the table. “Jon, I’ll be home by nine. Lovett, thanks for making things weird.”

She pushed Tommy out the door. Once it was closed behind him, she shook her head.

“You two,” she said.

“Blame Lovett,” Tommy said. “It’s not me.”

“It’s both of you idiots,” she replied. “Get in the car.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled, but did what she asked.

***

“I tried yoga,” Tommy told Dr. Bacall at their next session.

“Oh?” she asked.

“My friend does it. Emily, Jon’s wife. She said it might help me sleep.”

“Did it?”

Tommy picked at the dark brown fabric of the arm of his loveseat and shrugged. “It was fine. Relaxing. I’ll probably go again, but I don’t think it helped much. Maybe if I keep at it.”

“Have you tried those recordings of rain falling or crashing waves?” she asked. “Something to lull you to sleep?”

“That’s part of the problem,” Tommy mused. “When it gets bad like this, total quiet and darkness are the only things that work, otherwise I can’t get my brain to turn off. No TV, no music, no background noise. Nothing.”

“How does that work when you’re sleeping with someone? Is it even harder to rest?”

“It depends. If it’s after we’ve…” he trailed off, embarrassed, despite the fact that he was a grown man talking to his damn doctor.

“...Been intimate,” Dr. Bacall suggested delicately.

“Right. If it’s after we’ve been intimate,” he said, latching onto her innocuous phrasing, “I’ll usually fall asleep for a few hours before I’m back up the rest of the night. If we don’t become inti…” He rolled his eyes at himself. “... _have sex_ ” he corrected, “then it’s tougher, on those kind of nights. Once the person is asleep, I’ll get up and try the couch. If I’m going through a long bout of insomnia, though, I usually try to be alone so that I’m not keeping them awake either. Past partners have understood, for the most part.”

She nodded and then cocked her head a bit. “I notice you’re very careful with your pronouns. I hope you know that anything you say here is completely private, right?”

Tommy straightened his back before taking a deep breath. “I know. I’m bisexual. Does that matter?”

She shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she answered, “but the more information I have to work with, the better.”

Tommy nodded, feeling a little ridiculous about getting so defensive. “Yeah, I get that. That makes sense.”

“Have you tried sleeping in a different position? Or in a different room altogether?” she asked, clearly changing the subject.

He leaned back in his chair and sighed. “Yeah, I’ve tried my room, the guest room, and the couch in the living room. It’s all the same.”

“I know it’s an old classic, and forgive me, but I’m a mom. What about a glass of warm milk before bed?”

Tommy nodded. “Warm milk, a glass of wine, herbal tea, no caffeine after six. Jon brought me some pot and I tried smoking a joint before bed. Didn’t help. Nothing I eat or drink ever helps.”

“Now is this the Jon whose wife you’re doing yoga with or the other one?” she asked.

“The other one, sorry. We usually call them Favs and Lovett to avoid confusion. Favs is married to Emily. Lovett isn’t married to anyone, and definitely not to a woman,” Tommy explained.

“I see,” she said, writing that down in her notebook. “Well, let’s talk about trying some medication.”

***

Tommy, Favs, and Lovett were around the table recording a round of ads for the next few episodes of the pod. Tommy had a, for once, quiet and complacent Pundit sitting obediently on his lap, dozing off as he petted her soft fur. He really needed to get a dog.

“ _Pod Save America_ is brought to you by Soothe,” Favs began.

Lovett jumped in just as Favs was about to read the copy pulled up on his laptop. “Soothe. Are you having trouble sleeping because Donald Trump is president and the world is devolving into a dystopian hellscape, the likes of which not even George Orwell could have imagined, right in front of your waking eyes?” Lovett asked. He paused a beat for comedic effect. “A massage might help.”

Favs and Tommy laughed and Lovett gave him a significant waggle of his eyebrows that Tommy tried not to find endearing, but mostly failed.

“I feel like this ad copy is extremely targeted,” Tommy said.

***

“This is outrageous!” Jon declared. “We are the talent here. We should automatically get first dibs on single rooms when something like this happens.”

He tossed his carry-on onto one of the beds and scowled at the inoffensive white comforter.

“Ok, Beyonce,” Tommy replied, amused and filled with the familiar affectionate warmth that he always felt when Jon got himself worked up about something.

“It’s the _principle_ , Tommy,” Jon stressed. He flopped down on the bed, shoes and all, and turned to face Tommy, who was tucking his own luggage away on his side of the room. “Just calling ‘not it’ doesn’t apply in this situation -- _especially_ when two of the people who should have been involved were stuck outside talking about health care reform with the bellboy!”

Tommy tugged the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put it on the loveseat beside his bed.

“You didn’t seem too bothered about it when you were ten minutes deep into a rant about Paul Ryan -- “

“Well, I didn’t know there were crucial sleeping arrangement negotiations happening inside, did I?”

Tommy grinned as he toed off his sneakers and peeled off his socks. It had been a long, frustrating trip out to Indianapolis. Their flight got delayed twice, a baby two rows behind him had cried for all four hours of the trip, and they didn't touch down until nearly eleven, when the plane had been scheduled to get into Indianapolis at five.

When they showed up at the hotel to check-in sometime after midnight, they discovered a business convention was in town and two of the rooms in their block had been given away to accommodate the influx of visitors.

Tommy had been nursing a low-grade headache since around hour three of the journey. But now that he could finally put all his stuff down and relax on a bed, it was starting to dissipate.

He honestly couldn’t find it in him to care that he got the short straw, as long as he could just lay down and _stop_ for the night. His body probably wouldn't cooperate enough to actually let him sleep, but some time to rest, fuck around on Twitter and watch TV sounded great to him.

And, though he wouldn’t admit it out loud, if he had to not-sleep with anyone, he’d rather not-sleep with Lovett, who would at least keep him entertained.

“Should I be offended?” Tommy asked Jon as he unbuttoned and stripped off his jeans, tossing them on top of his bag. “We did live together.”

“Yes, thank you,” Jon grumbled, shifting until he was on his back with one arm thrown dramatically over his eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my memory. I’m not Jeff Sessions.”

“Now him I wouldn’t want to share a hotel room with,” Tommy said.

“Would it kill you to be a little less charmingly affable?” Jon demanded. “I’m trying to complain here, god.”

“Sorry,” Tommy answered, adding his Friend of the Pod t-shirt to the growing pile of discarded clothes and falling on top of the comforter with a sigh of contentment. “Do you want the first shower?”

“No,” Jon responded mulishly. Then after a moment, “Yes. Obviously yes. You know I hate smelling like an airport.” He pushed himself off the bed and shuffled towards the bathroom, stopping to grab a pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt from his luggage.

“Good, maybe it’ll put you in a better mood,” Tommy said.

“Maybe it’ll put _you_ in a better mood,” Jon muttered back senselessly as he closed the door behind him.

Moments later, Tommy heard the shower turn on. Briefly, he considered the small bottle of pills tucked away in his bag, but then decided against taking one. He’d tried various pills to deal with his insomnia since back in college, and they always fucked with his head the next day. Considering the live show scheduled for the following night, he didn’t want to risk it.

Instead, he reached over and picked up his phone. He sent a text to his mother letting her know he’d landed, and then opened Twitter and began to scroll through his mentions, liking and retweeting anything interesting.

No horrifying news had broken in the half an hour since he last checked -- always a distinct possibility in Trump’s America -- but Favs had posted an obvious subtweet making fun of Lovett’s annoyance at the hotel situation. Tommy retweeted it, adding, _can confirm_ and sent it off.

Fifteen minutes later, Jon emerged from the bathroom wearing the light blue flannel pants he took in with him. He had both arms through the arm holes of his white t-shirt, having clearly gotten distracted in the middle of putting it on by whatever he was reading on his phone.

“Did you see these new Don Jr. quotes?” he asked, his phone held out awkwardly as the material of the shirt restricted his movement.

“Yeah. Something to talk about on the show tomorrow?” Tommy asked.

Jon finally raised his arms and finished putting on the shirt. He smoothed the material down to cover his bare torso, which was damp and flushed from the heat of the shower. His hair was very wet and a rivulet of water traveled from his forehead. Tommy watched as it slid down Jon’s jaw and into the hollow of his throat, before disappearing beneath the collar of his shirt. Jon rubbed at it in annoyance.

Tommy blinked and looked away, pushing that image deep into the area of his mind reserved for That Thing He Didn’t Think About.

Jon, completely missing Tommy’s inner struggle, as usual, was still talking. “How is this real life?” he demanded before flopping on his bed, wet hair and all. “The fact that someone so mind-numbingly stupid is actually succeeding in undermining our democracy is unfathomable.”

Tommy had been planning to take a shower after Jon, but the whole, nightmarish day of travel was catching up to him and he decided he’d rather listen to Jon than drag his body out of bed and into the bathroom. In fact, there wasn’t much that Tommy would rather do than watch Jon work himself into a good, long rant, if he was honest. He shifted so that he was facing Jon and draped the sheet over his legs to settle in.

Soon, despite Jon continuing to verbally eviscerate the eldest Trump child with one elaborate analogy after another ( _It’s like he’s driving an ice cream truck, right, and…_ ), Tommy felt his limbs start to get heavy. He took a deep breath, forcing his muscles to relax. He didn't want to make any sudden movements and scare the sleep away, like placating a frightened animal. If he was lucky, he might even manage a few good hours before…

The next thing he was aware of was someone shaking his shoulder. He jolted away from the touch and lurched upright.

“Tommy, we’re gonna be late.”

Jon was standing in the space between their beds. He was already dressed and brandishing his phone in Tommy’s face to show him the time. It was almost nine in the morning. Holy shit, he'd slept nearly _eight_ full hours.

“How…?” he muttered.

“Hey, I tried to wake you up like four times,” Jon said, misinterpreting Tommy’s confusion. “You were out cold, man. I thought you were having trouble sleeping?”

Tommy rubbed his eyes. He was groggy and disoriented, but felt more refreshed than he had in _weeks_. What the hell?

“I was -- am,” he answered, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

“Well, my alarm clock went off and you slept right through it,” Jon said. “Hurry up, you have twenty minutes to shower and get ready.”

Tommy threw the blankets off and stood up, stretching his muscles languidly, enjoying the feeling of being well-rested for the first time in so long.

“Don't even think about blaming me for this. I have proof.” Jon pulled up a picture he’d taken of Tommy sleeping, with the clock on the nightstand in the corner reading 8:37am.

“I won't,” Tommy promised, still contemplating what had happened as he hurried into the bathroom.

***

“Have you tried the medication?” Dr. Bacall asked him at the next session.

Tommy shook his head. “It doesn’t work and it always makes me feel like shit,” he answered. “I’m gonna try a white noise machine. Or an app, maybe, on my phone.”

After Indianapolis, they'd made stops in Detroit and Madison before flying back to LA. Tommy hadn't managed another good night’s sleep like he had that first day, despite his best attempts.

“I thought you said you needed it to be quiet when you’re having trouble sleeping?” she asked.

“Yeah, usually,” Tommy agreed. “But on Tuesday, I ended up stuck sharing a room with Lovett. I was exhausted, so that was probably a big part of it: it took ten hours to get from LA to Indianapolis. We were stuck waiting in LAX for six -- anyway, the point is I passed out while Lovett was mid-rant, going on and on about something Donald Trump, Jr. said. The lights were even still on.”

“You think having Lovett there helped?” She jotted something down in her notebook.

He shrugged. “I don't know. I tried leaving the television on on Wednesday and Thursday, but it didn't help. It drove me nuts, actually, just like it usually does. Like I said, it might have just been because I was so tired that night.”

“Couldn't hurt to try the white noise idea, if you think it might help,” Dr. Bacall said. “I'll be interested in hearing how it goes next week.”

“I'll let you know.” He wasn't expecting much from it, if he was being honest. He'd become convinced Tuesday was a one-off because of sheer exhaustion.

“I listened to one of your podcasts,” Dr. Bacall said and he perked up.

“Oh yeah? Which one?” he asked.

“The most recent one from when you guys were in Detroit. It was interesting. You’re clearly very knowledgeable. But help me out here. The moderator, that was…?”

“Favs,” Tommy answered. 

“Favs,” she repeated, the nickname, as always, sounding clunky coming out of her mouth. “Does he always moderate?”

“Yeah, that’s how it works for the regular pods. Lovett and I both have our own podcasts that we lead though.”

“I assume Lovett is the one who gave that long rant about Trump Jr during the taping too.”

Tommy snorted. The Don Jr. rant in Indianapolis had been a huge hit with their fans -- a video of it blew up on Twitter and Instagram -- so of course Lovett brought some version of it back on each stop of the tour that weekend and threw it on the rant wheel for _Lovett Or Leave It_. Never let it be said that Jon Lovett passed up an easy applause line.

“That’s him,” Tommy confirmed. “And the guy who talked about campaign finance reform was Dan.”

“Are you close with all of them?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “We all worked together for years. Favs, Dan, and I go all the way back to Obama’s first presidential run. Lovett came later. He’d worked for Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primary, actually, so it took a little time to warm up to him, but Jon’s the kind of guy…” Tommy trailed off awkwardly.

“He’s the kind of guy what?” Dr. Bacall prompted with an inquisitive raise of her eyebrow.

Tommy paused a moment, choosing his words carefully. “Lovett is really loud and opinionated, which should put people off. When we were running against each other, I hated him. But he’s also really smart and compassionate and, like, ridiculously funny. It’s hard to dislike him.” He gave a short laugh. “I mean, if living with him didn’t do it, then nothing will.”

Dr. Bacall jotted down a note. “You and Lovett lived together?”

He nodded. “We were roommates for a while in DC.”

“When was this?”

“Obama’s first term, before Lovett quit and moved out here.”

“I see.” She tapped her notebook with her pen for a moment and then grinned. “You’re really not a fan of Steve Bannon, huh?”

***

Sleeping with the white noise app was about as effective as Tommy thought it was going to be: which is to say not at all. He lasted about an three hours, fiddling with the volume -- first turning it down and then cranking it way up -- before deciding it wasn’t going to work.

His bedroom was uncomfortably hot, despite the air conditioning working just fine. He yanked the t-shirt up over his head and tossed it across the room, then laid back down on top of the covers with his arms and ankles crossed, staring up blindly at the ceiling in his pitch black room.

They were working on the pod early the next day. He had only managed to snatch an hour of rest here and there for the better part of a week. He was going to be garbage when they recorded.

With a sigh, Tommy dragged himself out of bed. Trudging to the kitchen, he took a glass out of the cabinet and chugged some cold water. Then he turned the temperature on the thermostat down a few notches. He spent another few minutes watching the light traffic outside of his house before venturing back into his bedroom.

When his body still refused to get comfortable, he gave in and slid his hand inside his boxers. He’d been avoiding this because he knew exactly where he mind was going to go, and sure enough, the moment he wrapped his hand around his dick, he was back in that hotel room with Lovett.

He shut his eyes and recalled all of the the details he’d refused to let himself fixate on at the time, starting with Jon’s soft flannel pajama pants riding low on his hips and ending with that bead of shower water slipping inside the collar of his t-shirt.

Tommy’s mind took it from there. He imagined getting up off of the hotel bed to stand in front of Lovett. He imagined bending down to lick along the trail that water had left, up to the shell of Jon’s ear. He imagined ripping that fucking t-shirt off of Jon so he’d have a chance to really look at his body, to touch it.

His hand sped up and his hips began to work as he imagined dropping to his knees in front of Jon. Imagined Jon groaning and gripping Tommy’s shoulders to keep himself upright. Imagined biting the soft skin of Jon’s belly as he slowly removed Jon’s pants.

Imagined moving his mouth lower and…

With a gasp, Tommy came, wetness coating his hand and stomach as he rode out his orgasm with shallow breaths, one foot braced on the mattress for leverage as his hips rocked up to meet his hand.

When he was finished, he spread out like a starfish on top of his bed, arms and legs askew. It took a few blissful minutes, but then the embarrassment started to seep in the way it always did when Tommy allowed himself to think about Jon that way.

Jon, who was obnoxiously flirtatious with everyone, who had called Jared Kushner -- _Jared Kushner_ \-- attractive on more than one occasion, but who had never shown any genuine interest in Tommy in almost a decade, not even after he learned that Tommy also liked men.

Tommy wasn’t a passive person. He had tried to make a move once, on the night Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. The feeling of euphoria was overwhelming; Tommy had felt invincible. At the end of the night, he and Jon found themselves alone in a large booth at the back of the bar. Jon was on fire, just tearing into Joe Lieberman about the single-payer option. His face was flushed, his hair rumpled, and he was waving his arms around to emphasize some point he’d been making.

It was almost without conscious thought that Tommy had reached out under the table and placed a hand on Jon’s knee. Jon just looked so fucking happy, and Tommy was so fucking happy too, and all the times Tommy had wanted to kiss Jon in the years leading up to that moment had paled in comparison to how much he wanted to right then.

Jon stuttered to a halt mid-sentence. Tommy cleared his throat, summoned his courage and asked, “Did you maybe want to…?”

Jon stared at him blankly for long, agonizing seconds. Tommy’s heady confidence from moments earlier drained away and was replaced instead by a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach as he realized he’d gotten things very, very wrong.

Finally, Jon smirked and pushed Tommy’s hand off of his leg.

“Man, how drunk are you right now?” he asked.

Tommy immediately latched onto the out Jon had given him. He moved his body away from Jon’s -- when had they gotten so close? -- and took a long drink from his beer, eyes resolutely locked on the ring of condensation the glass had left on the scarred table top.

“Yeah. Yeah, pretty drunk,” he lied. Then he went about making it the truth, downing that pint and going off to get himself another.

And that was that. Neither of them mentioned it again. Tommy could take a hint, and he definitely wasn’t a masochist. Every once in a while, though, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the That Thing He Never Thinks About. It always, inevitably, lead him here: covered in come and shame and, to add insult to injury this time, no closer to falling asleep than he had been before.

***

“Did you try the white noise app?” Dr. Bacall asked him during his next session.

“It didn’t work,” Tommy answered. Then, when she opened her mouth to say something else, added, “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Her face registered her surprise a second before it smoothed out again. For a moment, Tommy thought she would try to push it, but instead she just said, “Okay.”

***

They were recording the Monday pod streaming live on Periscope. Favs was leading a discussion about the recent influx of Republican members of Congress in purple districts who announced they wouldn’t be running for re-election in the midterms.

Tommy was letting Favs and Lovett take the lead in gloating about Trump’s nosediving approval ratings and the democrats’ wide general ballot lead in the polls. Favs had that sly half-grin on his face that he wore when something really pleased him, while Lovett was gesticulating wildly and making the interns cover their mouths to stifle their laughter.

Tommy had his elbow propped on the table and his chin in his hand as he listened to the familiar ebb and flow of their banter.

“The important thing,” Lovett was saying, “is not to get complacent about this. These seats aren’t won yet. Nothing is decided. We have a real shot to take back the House, but there’s still so much work that needs to be done. We need people on the ground, going door to door, making phone calls, educating their friends and neighbors, registering people to vote. 2016 - never forget, my friends. Until we win, let’s work like there’s a good chance we might lose.”

Favs rumbled out a low laugh and said, “I think we’re boring Tommy.”

Tommy startled and snapped to attention, straightening in his chair.

Lovett threw his hands up in the air. “Tommy’s here dozing off as I make an impassioned plea to the American people to fight take back our government, and…”

“Oh, shut up,” Tommy answered good-naturedly. “No, sorry. You’re totally right. Find the nearest swing district and donate your time and money to helping the democrat win.”

Favs moved onto the next topic and Lovett nudged his shoulder, shooting him a worried look. Tommy gave a short shake of his head to brush away the concern and re-focused himself on the task at hand.

***

“Maybe I should try the medication again,” Tommy told Dr. Bacall the next day.

“Okay,” she agreed. “Are you still doing yoga?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but only because I like it. It’s not actually helping the problem.”

“So it’s back to the medication? Even though you don’t like it?” she asked.

“I have to try something. Things are getting tough at work.” He gave a short laugh. “I almost fell asleep in the middle of recording the pod yesterday. Lovett was talking and I was just...gone.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Bacall said.

“What?” he asked.

She paged through some of her notes on him for a moment and said, “You mention Lovett quite a bit in these sessions, did you know that?”

Tommy did not like where this was going. “We’re around each other a lot,” he said defensively. “We work together.”

“Remember the hotel room you two shared a few weeks ago? How listening to him helped you sleep?” Dr. Bacall continued.

Tommy felt his neck start to get red as he tried not to let on exactly _how well_ and _how often_ he remembered that hotel room. He crossed his arms in front of his chest.

“I was really tired that day,” he answered.

“You’re really tired all the time, Tommy. That’s why you’re here,” she countered. “You know. Often when there’s someone we really feel comfortable around, they help us relax. I feel that way about my husband, for instance, but it doesn’t have to be...”

Tommy vehemently shook his head in denial. “No way,” he said, cutting her off before she could finish her thought. “I mean, maybe you’re right in general, but that’s not what’s going on.”

“But you trust Lovett,” Dr. Bacall said.

“Of course I do, he’s my friend. I have a lot of friends, this hasn’t happened with any of _them_.” He clamped his mouth shut when he realized what he had just implied, but Dr. Bacall didn’t look surprised or triumphant at his admission. The look she gave him was full of compassion.

“Uh huh, and why do you think that is?” she asked.

Tommy opened and shut his mouth a few times, his mind shifting through several different responses before finally settling on the truth.

“Look, I -- fine, I have feelings for Lovett. They’re not returned, end of story. I really, really don’t want to talk about it. But that doesn’t mean -- that can’t be what’s going on here. We have to figure out something else.”

She put up both hands in a placating manner. “Okay, we will.”

“It’s _weird_ ,” he stressed. He bent over and put his head in his hands. “It’s so weird. _Who does this_?”

“You’re not doing anything. Not on purpose anyway,” she answered.

“He’s not my damn babysitter. A husband and a wife, like you said, that’s one thing. But it’s not _his_ problem that I’m having these...issues.”

She finished his train of thought. “And if you tell him what’s going on, then he’ll want to know _why_ , which would force you to either lie or actually tell him the truth.” She paused to let that sink in, then conceded, “We’ll try the medication again.”

***

Tommy spent two days miserable and foggy because of the medication, replaying what Dr. Bacall had told him over and over. It became obvious, though it could have been the medication at least partly talking, that Tommy was monumentally screwed. Hell, now that he was really thinking about it, that time spent living with Jon in DC was probably when he was getting the best, most consistent sleep in recent memory.

Tommy didn’t just get a normal crush, oh no. He apparently imprinted on Jon like a baby bird in probably the most inconvenient way possible. It was clear he’d never get another decent night of sleep again for the rest of his life. He’d end up like a subject of one of those government-run sleep deprivation experiments that, let’s be honest, Trump had probably re-started.

On the third day, Tommy caved.

_I ordered pizza. Wanna come over?_

He hit send and called up Jon’s favorite pizza place while he waited for the reply.

 _I'm bringing Pundit_ , came the answer five minutes later, followed shortly by, _It better not be gluten-free_.

***

“I was promised pizza,” Jon said when he and Pundit came through the front door twenty minutes later. “What are we watching? Ugh, sports.”

“The Red Sox / Yankees game,” Tommy replied. “Pizza will be here in fifteen.”

Jon rolled his eyes and kicked off his sneakers before crossing his socked feet on Tommy’s coffee table. He pulled out his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans and started messing around with it.

On the TV, Chris Sale struck someone out and Tommy gave a grunt of approval.

“This is so boring,” Jon said, less than five minutes later, when the next batter pinged a foul ball into the stands for the fourth pitch in a row. “They don’t even have attractive uniforms, like in soccer or basketball or...swimming.”

“You want them to wear Speedos?” Tommy asked.

“It couldn’t hurt.”

“I think it probably could,” Tommy said, amused despite himself.

“Anyway, I thought this game was supposed to be on yesterday,” Jon said.

“It’s a four-game series,” Tommy explained.

“God, imagine having to pretend to care about this for four days straight,” Jon said.

“Imagine _actually_ caring.”

“I can’t,” Jon replied. “That is literally unimaginable to me. You might as well ask me to imagine what night _tastes_ like. Where is my dog?” He looked around the living room.

“She better not be peeing on my floor,” Tommy said, just to rile him up.

Jon gasped, as predictable as ever. “ _Lies and slander_. When has she ever -- Pundit, get in here! If I have to watch baseball, so do you!”

There was silence for a moment, then the telltale jingle of Pundit’s collar and the tapping of her paws on Tommy’s hardwood floors as she scuttled in from the kitchen, barely breaking stride before leaping onto the couch. With a wiggle, she made herself comfortable between them, her head on Tommy’s lap.

“Hang on, why do I get the ass side?” Jon demanded. “Who feeds you? Who buys your toys? This is unacceptable. This is a slap in the face.” He dutifully reached up and scratched her bared belly.

The pizza arrived and got devoured -- Jon complaining about all the extra time in the gym that this would cost him but still polishing off his half anyway. The Red Sox got the win, and Jon grabbed the remote before Tommy could switch on CNN for his nightly dose of existential terror.

“Veto,” Jon declared, and somehow they ended up watching _Remember the Titans_ instead.

Around the time that the kid got hit by the car, Tommy noticed Jon falling asleep beside him. His hand was resting on Pundit’s back, with his legs pulled up under his body. Tommy watched him out of the corner of his eye, keeping perfectly still and thinking _maybe he’ll fall asleep. Maybe…_

The second time that Jon jerked himself back into consciousness, though, he stretched his arms over his head and yawned before sitting up.

“Time to go,” he said. “I’m about to pass out.”

“Finish watching the movie,” Tommy said. “It’s almost over.”

“I know what happens. Anyway, it’s after one. Aren’t you recording tomorrow?”

“Yeah, no problem,” Tommy said. “Why don’t you stay over? You can sleep --" _with me_ “-- in the guest room.”

Jon gave him a concerned look. “Do you want me to stay? Is this about you not being able to sleep? Because Favs told me about what it was like in Chicago. Are you okay?”

Jesus. “No, it’s not...never mind. You can go,” Tommy said.

Jon squinted. “Now you want me to go?”

Tommy shrugged, going for nonchalant but almost certainly failing miserably. “Do whatever you want to do. The guest room is open. I thought it would be easier for you than driving home. But go if you want.”

Jon glanced to the front door and then back at Tommy. “Go if I want,” he repeated. “But do you want me to stay?”

Tommy groaned and sunk back into the couch cushions. “I don’t have any feelings on the subject, Jon, okay? I’m tired, I’m gonna go to bed.”

“Are you having nightmares?” Jon asked and Tommy almost laughed.

“I’m not having nightmares. I’m not a kid.”

“I’ll stay,” Jon said resolutely.

Tommy covered his face with his hands. “Jon, just go.”

“You want me to stay. Something’s up with you lately, we can all see it. Look, I’m your friend, I want to help you. If this is what you need, I can do it,” he said earnestly. “Is it, like, a lack of human contact thing? You haven’t dated anyone in a while…”

_Nope, nope, nope._

Tommy jumped up off the couch and headed for the front door, barely avoiding Pundit under curiously dancing around his ankles. “It’s not a nightmare thing and it’s not a human contact thing. I’m fine, you don’t need to worry -- “

“Why won’t you just --"

“Jon -- !”

“Tommy!” Jon shouted back. “I am _so much more_ annoying and stubborn than you! You might as well just tell me!”

“It’s you, okay?” Tommy yelled in frustration and then immediately regretted it. “I mean…”

“It’s...me?” Jon asked. “What’s me?”

“I… _you made me tell you this_...” Tommy said accusingly, and then, “I find it easier to sleep when you’re around. Not when it’s anyone, just you.”

“Just me,” Jon said, clearly rattled.

Tommy cleared his throat. His face felt like it was on fire. “My therapist thinks it’s because I trust you or something.” He laid the blame at Dr. Bacall’s feet with only a little shame.

Jon stared at him. “You trust me...or something.”

“Yes.” This conversation was a nightmare and Tommy needed it to end.

“But _why_?” Jon asked.

Tommy grit his teeth and folded his arms over his chest, reminding himself that he owed Jon some answers.

“I don’t know,” he replied. “I guess you help me relax.”

“I help you relax?” Jon said.

“Jesus Christ, stop repeating everything I say!” Tommy shouted.

Jon ran both of his hands through his unruly hair. “Tommy. Literally no one on Earth finds my presence relaxing. _No one_.”

Tommy ran a hand over his face before looking up at the ceiling in frustration. “Look. I’m not sure what I can say here. I’m sorry, okay? This is weird -- which is why I didn’t want to tell you in the first place, by the way. You should just go.”

Jon was staring at him, shoulders squared, like he was going into battle, like he was trying to figure Tommy out. This was such a massive fuck up.

“But why?” Jon asked finally. “Why me?”

Tommy’s heart was slamming inside of his chest and he swallowed around a lump in his throat, remembering that night in a bar, remembering how it felt when Jon had laughed off his interest and pushed his hand away.

“Go, Jon. We’ll forget about it. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, alright?” Tommy said desperately. “This can just be another thing we don’t talk about.”

Jon froze. “ _Another_ thing?”

Tommy...he was exhausted and humiliated and all out of patience. He turned away and walked the few steps to the front door, opening it in clear invitation.

“I don’t know why you’re pretending not to…” Tommy faltered and took a deep breath. “I assume you think you’re being nice, but it’s not nice, okay? It sucks. It’s always sucked. I know you’re not interested in me. I’ve known since that night in the bar when you…" He shook his head to get rid of the memory. "Message received. I _got_ it. You don’t have to -- “

Tommy’s mouth snapped closed when Jon wrenched the door out of Tommy’s surprised grip and slammed it shut.

“Message _not_ received,” Jon countered. He was staring at Tommy with an expression Tommy had never seen before and couldn’t even begin to identify. “You definitely do _not_ got it.”

He pushed Tommy with both hands, not hard, but enough that Tommy stumbled away from the door and into the middle of the room.

“I’m gonna be honest and say that I’m only, like, 50% sure I understand what’s happening right now,” Jon continued, “but you know what? Fuck it.”

“Wha --?” Tommy had time to ask before Jon had surged up onto his toes and kissed him. The shock of it froze him in place, disbelieving, until Jon was pulling away. Only then did Tommy react, reeling Jon back in eagerly.

He felt frantic, unhinged. He had the material of Jon’s shirt fisted in both hands and was holding on for dear life, half of him wondering if he’d reached the hallucinatory stage of the sleep deprivation experiments. Jon kissed him slowly and deeply, taking control and forcing Tommy to follow his lead. Tommy should have guessed he’d be as pushy at this as he was at everything else.

Somehow, Tommy stumbled until his back was against a wall on the other side of the room, with Jon was draped over him, gasping for air.

Jon’s mouth was shiny and red and his hair was a fucking mess. He looked so good that Tommy almost missed the accusing finger Jon was poking into his chest.

“You said you were drunk!” Jon cried.

It took Tommy’s scrambled brain several long seconds to figure out what he meant. When he realized Jon was referencing that night in the bar, he straightened up against the wall and shook his head.

“No, _you_ said I was drunk,” he countered. “I agreed because you had just blown me off, and I was embarrassed. What else was I supposed to do?”

Instead of responding, Jon stared at him for a long moment before putting his head in his hands and laughing, sounding slightly hysterical. Tommy looked down at his shaking shoulders, affection and relief and lust all fighting for dominance inside him.

“So you weren’t blowing me off?” Tommy asked, needing the clarification. His voice sounded rougher than he meant it to, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “You were interested, even back then?”

Jon gave him an incredulous look. “ _Of course_ I was interested, Tommy, what the hell. You’re gorgeous, smart, funny, and one of my best fucking friends. In what world…?”

“You pushed me away,” Tommy countered. “In _this_ world.”

“You’re…” Jon seemed to run out of words and settled for gesturing emphatically at Tommy before giving up, dropping his arms and saying, “God, listen. No one else can know about this.”

“What? Why not?” Tommy bristled, leaning away.

Jon saw his reaction and gave him a hard kiss on the mouth. “No. Stop. Not this,” he replied, waving his hand between the two of them. “ _That_. Jon can’t find out that you were serious that night. He’ll never let me live it down. Promise me you’ll never tell him.”

“Wait, Favs knows…?” Tommy asked.

“Promise me and I’ll blow you.”

“I promise,” Tommy answered without hesitation.

“Take off your shirt,” Jon said and Tommy stripped his t-shirt dutifully over his head. Jon took a step closer and licked his lips. “It’s sickening how attractive your freckles are.”

Tommy looked down at his freckled chest and then back up at Jon. “Thanks?” he said uncertainly.

“Oh, shut up,” Jon said and then abruptly his face softened. He reached out and put his hands on Tommy’s bare waist, making Tommy shiver. “So, uh, I make it easier for you to fall asleep?”

Tommy nodded and cupped Jon’s cheek with his hand. “I guess I like you for some reason.”

Jon grinned, small and satisfied. It made Tommy feel like kissing him again, and since he could, he did.

“That’s good,” Jon answered when they broke away from each other. “That’s really...I, uh, I bet we could come up with some more creative ways to tire you out.”

Tommy snorted and Jon rolled his eyes in response. “Yes, alright, not my finest line. I’m sorry I’m not at my seductive best here, but…”

“I’m seduced,” Tommy said honestly. “Seriously. I cannot stress enough how ready I am for us to be naked.”

“Wow, you sound really desperate,” Jon said with a grin that turned into an outright laugh as Tommy grabbed him by the wrist and yanked him through the living room and towards his bedroom. “I’m so embarrassed for you right now.”

“Shirt off, pants off,” Tommy demanded impatiently when they crashed into his room moments later. He had just enough presence of mind to close the door to keep Pundit out, and then he was scrambling to undo Jon's jeans. “C’mon, c’mon.” His shaking fingers not letting him pop the button free. “Dammit.”

“Hang on, Casanova, let me...ahhh…” Jon stumbled as Tommy pushed him gently onto the bed and crawled up beside him.

Having given up on the pants for the moment, Tommy instead pulled Jon’s shirt off -- a task that required far less fine motor dexterity -- and tossed it on the ground. Finally there was smooth, naked skin that Tommy took immediate advantage of. His hands roamed up and down Jon’s sides until Jon twisted away, huffing out a laugh.

“Ticklish,” he admitted.

Tommy groaned and with renewed vigor, he finally got that fucking button and zip undone and ripped Jon’s jeans and boxers off, along with one stray sock. His own pants were easier, and within seconds, he’d returned to his position over Jon, both of them naked and half-hard.

Jon watched him with a fond smile before reaching up and running his fingers through Tommy’s hair. “I take it back. I like desperate Tommy.”

“You’ve really got to work on your compliments,” Tommy said.

“Should I write you a sonnet instead?” Jon asked. “I don’t know if I could nail the iambic pentameter right now, but I’d give it a shot for you. _My gentleman’s eyes are_ \--”

“Shut up, just…” Tommy slid his thigh between Jon’s legs and they both grunted at the new friction.

Carefully balancing his weight on his forearms, Tommy began to thrust as Jon rocked his hips up to meet him. Their mouths collided in a wet, hot, messy kiss until Jon turned away to lick a long stripe along the palm of his own hand and worm it down between their bodies. It took a few tries, but eventually he got both of their cocks in his grip and stroked, spit and pre-come making it an easy glide that felt so good it nearly caused Tommy's elbows to buckle.

“Not that I’m against where this is going,” Jon said a few moments later. He stopped briefly to suck a kiss into Tommy’s neck that Tommy knew meant tomorrow morning he’d be a man in his 30s walking around with a hickey. It was hard to care at the moment. Jon continued, “Not that I’m against, like, the basic traj...trajectory here, but I seem to recall promising you a blowjob, and I don’t think that’s going to happen if we keep...keep this up.”

“You can owe me,” Tommy gasped. “Besides, I’m afraid if you try I might fall asleep.”

Jon pushed up on his elbows. “Wait -- really?”

Tommy managed to keep a straight face for a beat and then smirked. “No.”

Jon flopped back down. “That’s not fair. I’m sex-addled. My brain isn’t working at its usually advanced level.”

“Feel free to stop talking then.”

“Feel free to make me.”

Tommy, it turns out, was up to the challenge.

***

Afterwards, as Tommy was dozing off, Jon wrapped an arm around his waist and settled his cheek against Tommy's shoulder.

“You’re about to fall asleep, aren’t you?” Jon asked.

“Mmm,” Tommy answered.

“You realize I’m going to be smug about this forever, right?”

“Mmhmm.”

“We haven’t even done any _good_ stuff yet,” Jon said.

“Thought that was pretty good,” Tommy said.

“Yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively, “but if that's all it takes, I know a few tricks that could make you _hibernate_ like a _bear_.”

“Looking forward to it,” Tommy mumbled, and then he was out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to Kimmi and Mare for all the support!


End file.
